Lilith (Lea) Cooper
Lilith (Lea, as in sea) Cooper is a zine maker, comics artist, printmaker, facilitator and DIY cultural organiser. Much of their work explores their experiences of madness, neurodivergence and in mental health services, and connects to archives, memory, activism, and the genre of ‘lived experience’ as it is invited into research, policy, participatory arts and medical pedagogy.
In 2017 they co-founded Edinburgh Zine Library, a DIY collection of contemporary zines. They have been part of the organising team behind the annual Edinburgh Zine Festival since it began in 2021. They are in their final year of a creative practice-based PhD, a Collaborative Doctoral Award between University of Kent and Wellcome Collection, exploring some of Wellcome’s 1000+ zines. They write and talk about zines, particularly those around health, illness, disability and madness, for diverse audiences. They are particularly interested in zine making as a practice research method and the ethics of zine research.
Their day job involves co-ordinating a peer support network and lived experience facilitation. They are also a keen cycle tourer, and one half of the duo behind Gears for Queers, a memoir of their first cycle tour published by Sandstone Press in June 2020. They are based in Kirkcaldy, Fife.
Photo credit: Ingrid Mur.